----"If there are many, they must be as many as they are and neither more nor less than that. But if they are as many as they are, they would be limited. If there are many, things that are are unlimited. For there are always others between the things that are, and again others between those, and so the things that are are unlimited."
---------Simplicius(a) On Aristotle's Physics
----Thexo's mind was like being in a cloud of colors and sounds from which no intelligent data could be gathered to make sense of the new world around him. But something he thought was a sound seemed familiar. It made him think of this young creature that appeared long ago in his research facility; Kastor was his name.
----His mind drifted back to that first moment when his experiment on a new type of propulsion was being tested.
"O Khroin Thex. An anomaly is being detected in the fuel chamber.", reported the Watcher.
---"What could possibly corrupt a perfectly pure fuel-void?", replied Thexo, waving his wrinkled hand before a mist, making an image appear on it. Thexo could see a dancing vapor, flickering like a candle exposed to the wind. The vapor was becoming denser rapidly, and Thexo could now see a shape forming in the void.
----But there was something strange in it. Every moment that passed saw it being different, sometimes big, most of the times small. As if a metamorphosing small child had been put into the fuel-void chamber. One thing was unmistakable for Thexo; the creature was afraid. Thexo waved his hand again before the mist and began to speak to the creature.
----"Wake up, Thexo! Do you hear me?", said Kastor, his violet eyes showing some worries for the well being of his friend. But Thexo was quickly standing up with the teenager's help, dead leaves and sand stuck on his clothes. "Are we really holding hands, after all those years?" laughed faintly Thexo.
----"The world has strange qualities for myself also, Thexo. But some sensations are coming back now, like heat and cold." Kastor was looking at the bushes and threes surrounding them, their leaves dancing with the wind, as if inspired by the near sea.
----"I think my brain is acclimating to your world, Kastor... I am standing firmly on the ground, is that right?" Thexo was tentatively hitting the land, sending small puffs of dust swirling around his ankles. Something he had never seen before. "Oh! Is the land answering the beat of my foot?", he asked Kastor who was staring at the top of the hills. There stood two people looking like Kastor, but dressed differently. Around them were creatures that Kastor recognized as being as precious and useful as a drop of Dlag-io fly, but did not remember their name, despite his best efforts.
----He was reflecting on the best course of action to initiate some form of communication with the two people when the smaller one began running down the hill, followed by a few sheeps. The taller one reacted by shouting something, arms raised above the head, then proceeded to hold the other sheeps remaining on the hills.
----Already, the smaller one was arriving in front of Kastor and Thexo. Kastor felt strangely paralyzed, unable to speak. The person standing before him was... a girl. He had souvenirs of his mother, but never had thought of other girls, or women... He had the impression his cheeks were catching on fire. This seemed to amuse the girl who let go of a shy laughter, turning her eyes towards the ground, also blushing.
----"Interesting!", said Thexo, getting closer to Kastor, inspecting closely the face of his young friend. "I had no idea your body could do something so unusual! Are there other similar surprises in reserve?" Kastor looked at his friend, his mind registering events at a much slower speed than usual.
----"Helenia! Helenia! Are you mad to run to strangers like that? They could have been Persians!" The young man, looking angry, was quick besides his sister, pointing his shepherd's crook in the direction of the two strangers. "Who are you? Answer me!"
----"Helenia?", said Kastor. "You have my mother's mother name..." But the angry young man made one step further, agitating menacingly his crook closer to Kastor's face. "Tell me who you are!", said the boy in a louder voice.
----Thexo decided he was firm enough to take the lead. "We are Kastor and Thexo. We come from... a far land, in hope to find merchants. Unfortunately, our arrival here was somewhat accidental, in its ending." His still faint voice had a soothing effect on the boy who relaxed, lowering his shepherd's crook . "So you are not Persian spies?"
----The young Helenia gave a little push to her brother. "Thales, don't be so rude. Do they look like spies to you? They have no weapons with them!" Thexo agreed silently by nodding his head to the side. Kastor was only looking at the young girl's eyes.
----"You are merchants, you say? What commerce is it that you do?", said Thales, still a bit nervous, gently squeezing his shepherd's crook. Thexo smiled gently at Thales. "We are merchants of wonderful ideas of things mechanical."
----Thales looked at both friends and said, in a proud voice; "Well, if you are merchants, you fell to the right place. You are on the island of Naxos, the world center of commerce!" Looking at his sister, he ordered her to round up the sheeps and go back up the hill with them.
----"Follow us to the pasture with the sheeps, we will share our dinner with you there, and at the end of the afternoon, I will accompany you to the city. Maybe you will find your shipmates waiting for you there.", said Thales, turning to help her sister.
----Resting in the shadow of a tree after a light meal, Thexo stares at the sea. "I find your rolling lands to be fascinating! Always moving, never the same... and yet, it does not break!" Pointing to the sky, he continues; "To see naturally formed mists is a concept I find hard to grasp..." But Kastor was interrupting him.
----"Remember Thexo; the rolling lands are called water and those mists are... hum..." "Clouds!", answered Thexo. His hand on Kastor's shoulder, he says; "Do not forget, my friend, that this world is as new to me as mine was to you, so long ago. Our eyes have witnessed two worlds!"
----Thales arrived then. He surprised the duo by saying; "I never liked the name Kastor, and you, old man, have a name with no meaning to people here." Picking up his skin bag, he looked at Kastor and said; "You have eyes very alien to this country. You will now be Xenos, and you old man, you have such a strange voice, you will now be Xenophon."
----"My brother can be very blunt, sometimes. What he means to say is that the people of the city will call you by those names.", said Helenia, smiling to Kastor-now-Xenos.
----Metrion appreciated her wife's massaging his shoulders, but the words of the Oracle still echoed in his mind, like a lightning sent to explode eternally in his mind by Zeus himself. "You will lose him, you have already lost him... Protect him, for when the night comes that he kills himself, he will become the Destroyer of All!"
edit on 9-5-2011 by NowanKenubi because: (no reason given)
